Discover a new service - journal articles and beyond

The Society and EBSCO Information Services have got together to launch Discovery Service – a new, customised way for BPS members to search and access a multitude of online journals and other publications. The service went live in early December and is available free to all members, including students.

This is a major new development of the Society's programme of delivering high-quality resources to support research, teaching and practice. It represents a significant enhancement to the already popular PsychSource service and will be particularly useful to members without their own institutional access to journals and other library resources.

The key feature of BPS Discovery Service is that it provides access to a vast knowledge base within a unified search experience. As well as offering a single search (with advanced options) of all our primary full-text journals databases – the 11 BPS journals and 32 selected Wiley journals, which are already available through PsychSource, and 500+ titles in EBSCO's Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection – the new service also searches a wealth of publishers' metadata and open-access material, including:
I    open-access journals databases;
I    subject and institutional repositories
I    premium psychology publishers – Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Springer, Emerald, and many more;
I    academic catalogues – Science Direct, ERIC, JSTOR, etc.; and
I    many other online sources – biographies, ebooks, conference proceedings, images, magazines, newspapers, videos, and much more.

Search results are ranked according to relevancy and, where available, deliver immediate access to full-text content directly from the results list.

Dorothy Miell, BPS President, said: 'This new service for the first time brings together the major journal collections that the Society provides free of charge to its members. Instead of separate searches, a single search is now all that's needed. Add to that the large quantity of other resources that Discovery Service gives access to, and it is rather like having our own massive, private online library. This initiative is part of the Society's ongoing commitment to providing research resources to our members and adding value to membership.'

Discovery Service is available to Society members only (but not Affiliate or Subscriber grades), and PsychSource provides the access point. Our publishing partners Wiley, with whom PsychSource is a joint, enterprise, have helped incorporate a simple authentication and access process.

Members who have used EBSCO's Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection in the past using EBSCOhost via the Society's website will have no trouble recognising the new Discovery Service interface, which looks similar and behaves identically, except there is so much more content available. What's more, for the many members who have created their own profile within EBSCOhost, all their preferences, search history, and so on, will automatically be carried across to Discovery Service. Members will also find the new login via PsychSource much quicker and simpler – once signed in, just a single click.

For less extensive library research, PsychSource is still available to anyone, member or non-member, to search and browse BPS/Wiley books, journals and multimedia; and for members, it is also the place to go to for generous Wiley book discounts.

Peter Dillon-Hooper
Academic Resources Manager